One of my horses is having a rough time this year. She’s allergic to the whole universe, but it gets worse when we have wet hot weather and that’s all we have been having. She’s already on 20 zyrtec a day. She is bathed daily in a medicated hydrocortisone/lidocaine shampoo and then slathered in hydrocortisone and fly spray. But she still has hives.
She doesn’t have sweet itch but I think the flies landing on her don’t help. She’s mostly allergic to pollen.
Dex is out of the question for her, she’s a pony and had laminitis once.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
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Mine both have both developed full body hives from allergic reactions to fly sprays - two different brands of natural sprays. Vet has seen it in other horses too with these brands.
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Have you done an allergy panel and shots? One of mine is very allergic to weeds and he will break out in tiny hives from nose to tail, relentlessly. I did all that you said and eliminated foods, double rinsed saddle pads and fly sheets, changed fly spray, changed bedding (I tried very expensive hemp bedding for a while, but also tried paper and straw). I had an IgE panel done from VET - Horse allergy diagnosis - Nextmune Nextmune through my vet (you have to go through a vet). I wanted to try that first before doing the in depth skin testing. The results showed that he is allergic to all the weeds and soy, oats and flax (I know the flax is unlikely and usually a false positive). The test and first round of shots cost roughly $500. The maintenance vial is around $200. This has REALLY helped him. He got hives only once this summer and hydroxizine knocked it out in a day. During the initial course of shots, you gradually increase the concentration of the allergen to desensitize the immune system to it. He would break out in hives from time to time when we would increase and the company will give you a different course if it happens too much. I decided to stick to the protocol and supplement with zyrtec or hydroxazine from time to time. By the end of the 9 month protocol, he pretty much stopped getting hives until this one time in the summer. But that was a very hot day after a rainy and cool spring so he may have been stressed. I can’t recommend the Nextmune enough–two other people’s horses in my barn also have had success with it.
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If you don’t already, add some Vit E to her diet. This helped my hive pony more than I thought it would.
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No I haven’t; this is the first year her allergies have been uncontrolled by zyrtec. Because it’s been so bad i was planning on getting her tested in the fall (since right now her immune system is so angry she would probably react to everything). I didn’t realize they did serum testing; I will ask my vet about it as it seems it could be done now?
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Have you tried spirulina? Going back years ago for various reasons I’ve fed it and it’s wierd. My horses fight over who gets it. I would dose with a syringe and they open their mouths for it. They want it so bad!
My mare is why I started it - heaves distressed enough for emergency calls. We did the BAL, the derm skin test (and she’s allergic to so many things) but what tips her over the edge is hay that breaks down and decomposes. So I’m super tidy. But she still coughs and gets hives occasionally. What helps her every time is Respire by Horsetech.
Then my new guy was hivey after deworming but what he was always doing was pushing her out of the way to get the Respire. So I started giving it to both of them if I noticed any bothering issues. And thank you because they both coughed this morning and got a little footy because I’ve had them out on grass unmuzzled. Respire helps them with that too. So now I just put it in their feed, wet it all down and they gobble it up.
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Had a horse that was getting hives, the vet said most likely from tree pollen. The vet told us to move him to the pasture with almost no trees. It helped! The hives reduced greatly. That horse eventually seemed to develop some resistance to the pollen, because it was only necessary to avoid trees for the first year that he was at that farm.
Even if skin sensitivity is not germaine to what your horse has, it might help to keep gently disinfecting your grooming tools after every grooming. I had a small bucket that had a squirt of medicated soap with water, and every curry and brush was dropped in there to slosh around and sit for a few minutes, after every grooming. It only took an extra minute to do this and then rinse them afterward. It seemed to help keep the skin calmer.
Good luck finding the allergy and the solution!
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This has been such a bad year for allergies. My gelding is also blowing through his Zyrtec more than usual, luckily not as bad as yours yet. I spray him down with Microtek spray whenever the hives start breaking. That stuff works wonders on so many issues, I always have some on hand. He’s also on a flax supplement which helps with the itchiness.
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I love Microtek too.
I have not. Completely off topic but a friends’ horse went into acute liver failure and passed from an algae supplement. So I’m now very leery to feed them.
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Microtek smells so good too. Maybe I’ll try some for her.
Wow. Had not heard of anything like that. Very alarming. I can imagine your reluctance!
Yeah, it was pretty crazy. Totally healthy to dead in a few weeks. The vet hospital said they had heard of other horses having liver damage from algae supplements. I know there has been some studies in it possibly causing liver damage in humans with a possible connection to contamination from Cyanobacteria.
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There was no problem testing in the middle of summer while he was having constant hive breakouts. That summer, I had to have the vet give him Dex a few times because the antihistamines were not working. Cold wet towels did help; cold rinses did help. I also tried different shampoos. The Nextmune is a long term commitment, but it’s not horribly expensive and it worked for me. It did take a few weeks to get the results and the immunotherapy shots. They are administered subcutaneously, and not hard to give. You need to calendar the shots because the amount and frequency changes.
One of my horses gets hives a lot. Ironically, not the red head although when he gets hives they are impressive. Horse rubbed his neck pretty much bald last summer from it. We did the Nextmune testing since the red horse has done so well on the allergy shots (he got respiratory problems, stopped sweating, sweet itch and then finally ripped off a chunk of eyelid trying to scratch so much). I did the testing twice, about a year apart. First time was because he sneezes so much under saddle sometimes he’s not rideable. And then after the rubbing himself bald last summer. Didn’t show much in the way of allergies at all either time, even when he was clearly miserable. A couple weeds maybe. But the hives seemed to be worse when there were any gnats. So we decided to just try their insect panel base with the few maybe positives.
He was doing ok in the southeast this spring (with a lot of bugs and pollen) but coming back to CO, his neck immediately broke out in hives in the first week and he started rubbing and getting flaky scalp. It was wet and cooler here, and they weren’t putting on the fly sheets, and the no see ums were definitely out.
Last year I tried all of the shampoos and creams. Antibacterial, antifungal, cooling no itch shampoos, topical steroids, coat defense powder, you name it. Might stop rubbing for one day if that.
This year, the ticket has been Equiderma Neem shampoo and using a light coating of the Equiderma Zinc on any bald spots. And hair is growing back and new rubbing is minimal. If he starts again, I shampoo again. And it lasts quite a while compared to last year. I don’t know if the allergy serum has toned it down enough now it’s manageable or what, but I’ll take it. I would notice an uptick in itching/scratching in general when we’d be getting close to time for the next dose. He’s almost done with the loading dose and then we’ll start the maintenance.
He’s also gotten some scratches on his (white) legs this year which is not typical, and so I may need to supplement his nutrition some as well.
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